"Tommy! What a horrid, bad boy you are!" cries poor Joyce, wildly. She gives a frantic shake to the petticoats in question. "Find him at once, sir! He must be somewhere down there. I shan't have an instant's peace until I know where he is." "I can't see him anywhere," says Tommy. "Maybe you'll feel him presently, and then we'll know. He isn't on your leg now, is he?" "Oh! don't!" cries Joyce, who looks as if she is going, to cry. She gives herself another vigorous shake, and stands away from the spot where Tommy evidently thinks the noxious beast in question may be, with her petticoats held carefully up in both hands. "Oh, Tommy, darling! Do find him. He can't be up my petticoats, can he?" "He can. There's, nothing they can't do," says Tommy, who is plainly revelling in the storm he has raised. Her open fright is beer and skittles to him. "Why did you stir? He was as good as gold, until then; and there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I was watching him. When he got to your ear I'd have told you. I wouldn't like him to make you deaf, but I wanted to see if he would go to your ear. But you spoiled all my fun, and now--where is he now?" asks Tommy, with an awful suggestion in his tone. "On the grass, perhaps," says Joyce, miserably, looking round her everywhere, and even on her shoulder. "I don't feel him anywhere." "Sometimes they stay quite a long time, and then they crawl!" says Tommy, the most horrible anticipation in his tone. "Really, Tommy," cries his aunt, indignantly, "I do think you are the most abominable boy I ever met in my life. There, go away! I certainly shan't read another line to you--either now--or--ever!" "What is the matter?" asks a voice at this moment, that sounds close to her elbow. She turns round with a start. "It is you, Felix!" says she, coloring warmly. "Oh--oh, it's nothing. Only Tommy. And he said I had an earwig on me. And I was just a little unnerved, you know." "And no wonder," says her lover, with delightful sympathy. "I can't bear that sort of wild animal myself. Tommy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. When you saw him why didn't you rise up and slay the destroyer of your aunt's peace? There; run away into the hall. You will find on one of the tables a box of chocolate. I told Mabel it was there; perhaps she----" Like an arrow from the bow, Tommy departs. "He has evidently his doubts of Mabel," says Joyce, laughing rather nervously. She is still a little shy with Felix. "He doesn't trust her." "No." He has seated himself and now draws her down beside him. "You were reading?" he says. "Yes." "To Tommy?" "Yes," laughing more naturally this time. "Tommy is a more learned person than one would have supposed. Is this the sort of thing he likes?" pointing to Nydia's exquisite song. "I am afraid not, though he would insist upon my reading it. The earwig was evidently far more engrossing as a subject than either the wind or the rose."